Andy Dufresne
Andy Dufresne is the main protagonist in Stephen King's Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and the 1994 film adaption. History Early Life He graduated from the University of Maine with a degree in corporate analytics. 1930s Andy was the Vice President of the Maine Bank which Red said was good work for a man as young as he was. Andy was parked outside his wife's lover's house, drinking and contemplating whether or not to confront her Glenn Quentin lover, local golf pro, Glenn Quentin. He was listening to music on the radio while drinking alcohol. Andy stepped out of his car and threw his bottle smashing it and moving the remains under his car with his foot. Andy then decided to not go through with the murder. The next day, his wife and her lover were found dead. Andy was arrested and charged for being the perpetrator of the murders, and was later convicted and sent to Shawshank Prison for life. 1940s Andy defended himself when Bogs and the sisters tried to rape him after taking a liking to him, after Bogs nearly killed him Hadley paralyzed Bogs and put him in a wheelchair as a result. He was exempt from manual labor and harassment by his fellow inmates as a result of his financial skills. He wrote weekly letters to the state senate for six years asking for funds to work on the prison library. After he succeeds, he is thrown in the hole for playing a song over the speaker so the entire prison can hear. Andy continues to send letters until the state sends him an annual fund of 500 dollars "just to shut him up." 50s-60s Throughout the early 1960s, Andy built the Brooks Hatlen Memorial Library. By 1963 he had built the finest prison library in all of New England. The same year, the warden started his new public service program where the prisoners would work outside the walls. In reality it was simply a way for the Warden to make money from the cheap labor of the inmates. Andy, using an entity named Randall Stephens, laundered the Warden's money. In 1965 Tommy Williams arrived at Shawshank and Andy and his friends took a liking to him soon after he arrived. Soon he was a part of their gang. Tommy wanted to try for his GED so Andy helped him. When he took his test he thought he had failed and had a breakdown. Andy sent in the test anyway, and Tommy passed with a C+ average. Tommy told Red and Andy he knew who really killed Andy's wife and her lover. It was his former cellmate at another prison, Elmo Blatch. Andy went to the warden and told him about the new evidence. The Warden didn't want to let Andy get a new trial and leave Shawshank, so after Andy called him obtuse, he sent Andy to the hole. During Andy's stay in the hole, Tommy was murdered by the Warden and Captain Hadley. Once he was released from the hole, Andy realized that the warden was never going to let him leave Shawshank State Penitentary. Escape In 1966, Andy escaped from Shawshank prison. He had spent 19 years tunneling through the terrible memes of his cell with his rock hammer, covering up the hole with his girlie posters. After Tommy was murdered, Andy decided he had been there long enough. On a stormy night, he took the warden's crooked books and replaced them with the bible that he had used to hide his rock hammer. He also put on one of the warden's suits, covering it up with his prison uniform. He procured a 6-foot length of rope from the loading dock, and tied a plastic bag filled with the books, the warden's suit and his rocks to his foot. He crawled through the tunnel he had dug to a maintenance area, where he busted a pipe open in unison with the thunder. After three attempts, the pipe burst open. He crawled through 500 yards of the sewage pipe, coming out into a river. He ripped off his shirt and basked in his freedom. The next day, Andy walked into the National Casco Bank of Portland and nearly a dozen other banks, and, posing as Randall Stephens, he withdrew more than 860,000 dollars of the warden's money. He also mailed the books to the Daily Bugle, which published a story that caused Captain Hadley to be arrested and Warden Norton to commit suicide. He later crossed into Mexico at Fort Hancock, before settling down in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, where he bought a worthless boat and began to fix it up. He sent Red a postcard from Fort Hancock. After being paroled, Red violates his parole and travels to Zihuatanejo to meet up with Andy and the friends are happily reunited.